Is the Correction of Tokyo Rubber Finished Already ?

334 is the nearer resistance, up break 334, the price just will continue going up,  the first target is 338-340.  If the price can’t break 334, expect the price will down forward to 322 -320.  I personally feel that should have one more leg.

Rubber Hourly Chart

Mind Control for Performance

 

Written by Brian Tran
Last updated: Monday, 05 February 2007

The negative state of mind can be a subtle but deadly self-destructive machine to ruining our day, either trading or relations with coworkers, friends and family. It’s not pretty watching ourselves get all caught up in our struggle in our head and seeing yourself tearing up other people for little or no reason. Lucky that these people are sympathetic and civic enough to stay cool and ignore your state of mind. But walk into trading with that and you’ll get crushed in minutes. Why? The other traders don’t know how and don’t care, cannot sympathize with your problems because everyone there is doing one thing and one thing only: taking money from your pocketbook.

The market is a cold and unforgiving place when you make mistakes or trade for wrong reasons. It’ll take that reason and turn it against you. It may teach you to do it properly or don’t do it at all. There are many traders who use their trading as a therapy unknowingly. How? They reflect their emotions and behavior from their real life into trading. If a trader is angry that day (or an angry by nature), chances are he’ll trade like the person he is: aggressive and unreasonable. Being aggressive is not a bad attribute in trading but it needs to used in certain conditions (i.e. the market is trending smooth and stepping up size in the right direction is acceptable aggressiveness). But being aggressive randomly is sure to take your account down and out. Unreasonable is even worst, that throwing dice without thought and reason leaving to chance to decide about your money. Each personality has a weakness and the market will point out that weakness quickly. Unless we hide it away and put forward our strength, it’ll be a bloodbath.

Whatever happens outside the trading room (trading hours) should be left outside. It’s not an easy task to turn off a feeling or state of mind since we’re all humans and we can’t manage ourselves as well as we’d like. But if we can’t turn it off, better not to trade that day.

But some traders have to trade every day as a way of making a living. How does one go about to overcome this deadly state of mind or put into a proper trading mindset to trade with high performance and consistency? There are several tricks or methods to change it quickly. Here are a few:

1. Using a physical cue to engage that emotion or state of mind. Many times a physical action we take change our state of being, such as sports. When we practice sports, the physical activity clears our mind and takes us to another level, mainly state of less stress, worry and anxiety. This cue can be learned. For example, you can practice smiling at the same time thinking of the wonderful time you had in the past. Or by pulling out a cue, the body fools the mind into thinking and feeling something else. This will quickly flushes out the bad emotion unwanted for trading.
2.  Using verbal cues to go into a desire state of mind. This may sound mediocre or cliché but the effect speaks for itself. Sport athletes use these cue every time before a major game or meet. Examples would be, “I´m ready to win today, my mind is clear and focused,” or “I’m thinking of a nice sunny sandy beach in Hawaii with a nice drink in the hand and am relax and ready to enjoy the session.” Practicing positive words with focus and concentration will eventually cue the mind to automatically go into that state when it hears these words.

3. Turn the trading environment into a sanctuary where a state of mind is turned on immediately. Many traders trade at home or trade at the office so it’s a difficult to get a place where distractions are the norm. This can only create more stress than necessary. Learn how to cope with it or build a set of rules where limits (such as time limits or no trespassing in the office, etc) are set for others.

Many professional athletes and traders can turn these state of mind on and off on a dime by having practicing these over and over along with the real practicing (physical training or trading knowledge building). It is an essential training to go into the “zone” instantaneously. Without doing, it may take hours or days to get rid of this state of mind before that right state of mind back to be ready to trade. This is a waste of productive time.

 

Discipline – A Key Element To Success

Written by Brian Tran
Last updated: Friday, 15 December 2007

Trading is a very simple task whereby the trader only requires a touch of a few buttons and the computer executes a buy or a sell order of the stock or commodity they believe will move in a their direction. This task is so simple that many take trading for granted that it requires much more knowledge and mental preparation before pursuing this endeavour with real money.

The fallacy of this industry is that anyone can trade or invest; even someone’s next door neighbour’s grandmother can do it. That alone leads many to believe that everyone can make money in the stock market by simply buy and sell as they see it. In addition, with a small amount of funds, anyone can open an account and immediately start trading. Worst, many are only warned by a small fine print that trading or investing can lead to losses. It’s only a matter of time that the trader begins to realize that the warning is a not a standard disclaimer but a reality. This is when he begins the quest for a winning system, starting with the fundamental side of stock analysis such as company products, competition, earnings per share, corporate and government news and announcements. Then he learns about technical analysis such as indicators, charting, and even neural networks. But one element that is missing in trading is the discipline of self, knowledge and discovery of self that can make him a true consistent trader, no matter how small amount he uses for investment.

Discipline is used in every aspect of everyone’s life, due to obligations and responsibilities to others. But in trading, the trader is not held accountable to anyone except to himself or herself; he does as he likes with it: spend it on hobbies, clothes, consuming food and drinks including losing it in senseless acts, including trading. Many believe that this discipline is the same as the real world. But evaluating objectively, many will fail to the true the definition of discipline. Many give themselves higher regard than it really is. The military are truly trained to be disciplined because in combat they rely upon themselves to live or die; their discipline determines their fate in battles. For civilians, this live-or-die environment is not exposed so true discipline is not acutely tested until trading begins. The analogy of traders dying everyday out in the trading battlefield due to lack of a trading plan and lack of control over oneself in the markets is very similar.

To the average trader, he can sum up that trading is gambling or entertainment expenses. But to make money out of the market on a consistent basis, certain seriousness must be paid to it. This means applying discipline and learning in a methodical way. In trading, no one will judge, criticize or praise the trader’s actions. The only outcome is the account balance. This is the scoring sheet.

Paper trading helps qualify and quantify the degree to which the trader may or may not have discipline. During this period, keeping a diary or journal to record the trades that not only include entries/exits, technical or fundamental reasons and most importantly, personal thoughts and feelings at the moment before taking trade and during the trade. During this period, the trader can begin adjusting and practice to eliminate these vulnerabilities and strengthen consistency. If successful, the trader can begin to trade real money. In case of relapse, the trader must return to stop and re-evaluate the trades to pinpoint where and how the relapse occurred.

Discipline is one of the main ingredients to long term success. In short, lack of discipline leads to overtrading, chasing the market, poor entries, poor exits, poor money management, poor risk management, poor preparation. Once disciplined has been mastered, the above problems will be eliminated. Consistency is the key but consistency requires discipline. Master it and it’ll show the path to profitability.